


care and keeping

by londer



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), The Unsleeping City
Genre: Campaign 03 Season 01: The Unsleeping City, Campaign 03 Season 02: The Unsleeping City Chapter II, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, het rights i guess, only fluff, snuggles, sweet relationship moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28747155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/londer/pseuds/londer
Summary: just some esthericky slice of life sweetness
Relationships: Ricky Matsui/Esther Sinclair
Comments: 20
Kudos: 62





	care and keeping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SolaSola](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolaSola/gifts).



> for sola <3

Ricky steps out of the shower and his towel (normally hung on the rack on the back of the door) is folded neatly on the counter. He picks it up tentatively, and it's newly warm and dryer-fluffed, so he wraps himself in it quickly before the chill of the bathroom gets to his wet skin. There's a heart drawn in the steam on the bathroom mirror.

* * *

Esther curls into the corner of the couch in a hazy of pain. Her period is like,  _ yay! not pregnant _ , but also  _ fucking ow cramps _ . The fact that nobody has come up with a spell that works better than Motrin is absolute bullshit. She’s going to text her cleric friends as soon as she can think clearly enough to bother them about it. 

Ricky takes one of her hands and drops a dose of painkillers into it. She horks them down and he passes her a cup of water next. He smoothes a hand over her hair, down over her ear and neck to squeeze at her shoulder. His hand is so nice and warm. She makes weak grabby hands at him and he makes a little sympathetic noise before pulling away. 

“Let me grab your heat pack first, okay?” 

She nods, but makes a grumbly noise of protest anyway. He leaves and she burrows her face into the armrest while she waits for the meds to kick in. Ricky comes back and presses the microwave-hot bag of beans to her stomach. She makes a tiny noise of relief at the warmth that spreads through her pain-sharp abdomen, and then a louder noise of satisfaction when Ricky lies down on the couch and snuggles her close to his chest. 

He produces a tiny Hershey's bar from his pocket, unwraps it, and pops it into her mouth. She lets the chocolate melt slowly on her tongue as she buries her face into his chest and breathes in deep.

* * *

She smoothes her hands up his lats, digging the heels of her palms into tense muscle, and Ricky whimpers slightly beneath her. Esther has to move off of where she’s sitting straddle over his waist to grab another handful of lotion from the container on her nightstand. It’s a nice break from the strain in her thighs from kneeling over him, and she shakes the tension out of her legs as she warms up the body butter between her palms. 

She sits back on his prone form and sweeps her hands in long strokes up and down his back before starting to rub her thumbs into the tension in his lower back. Ricky’s head is turned against the pillows and she can see the zonked out expression of bliss on his face. He looks half asleep and completely relaxed, but Esther continues to work on his tired muscles, smoothing knots in his back and rubbing up and down his arms. It’s nice to feel him up a little, sure, but it’s even better to do something that’s just for him and to get to see how much he’s enjoying it.

* * *

She’s working late tonight; it’s nearly midnight now. The door to her study is cracked open, so he knows he could go in if he needed something. But it’s obvious from the tension in her face when she emerges to eat a quick dinner of leftover risotto that this is Important Work and should be left to it. 

So Ricky’s kind of bouncing around the apartment, doing push-ups and tidying up the living room. He starts a load of laundry, changes their sheets, sorts the recycling and takes it out. He’s feeling a bit odd, just a little useless. 

He goes to the fridge and digs out a container of strawberries and an apple. The paring knife is sharp and delicately slices the tops off the strawberries and cuts them into thin panels.He cores the apple and splits it neatly into wedges and spoons peanut butter onto a corner of the plate. 

Ricky ducks into Esther’s study quietly. He places the plate on a clear corner of her desk, puts a kiss on the crown of her head, and retreats from the room before she can even thank him.

* * *

Esther wakes in the middle of the night because she's overheating. It's pitch black in their room, and Ricky's wrapped entirely around her like a snuggly octopus. His face is buried in the crook of her neck and he holds her the same in sleep as he does when he's awake, firmly but not too tight. Esther carefully kicks the blankets away from her legs and the cool rush of air is sweet against her hot skin. She kisses the top of Ricky's head and lets sleep take her again.

* * *

They do their taxes together. Ricky is civic-minded and good at the forms. Esther is good at math and can get magical tax deductions. 

“We would save a lot of money if we filed jointly,” Ricky says. "Can you pass me my W-2?"

“That’s a terrible proposal,” Esther says. She can’t help how she blushes as she says it, and busies herself rifling through her documents. It’s like - this is long term. They’ve established that this is long term, although neither of them have really said the words  _ marriage _ or  _ engagement _ .

Ricky cocks his head. He types away at his laptop for a few minutes and Esther’s stomach churns. Eventually he turns his screen around and it’s - 

“You should give me a few ideas of what kind of ring you’d like,” he says, pressing a kiss to her cheek. The website of a jewelry store glitters before her. “So I can give it a better shot.” 

Tears slip, and she turns and wedges her face into his shoulder.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me on tumblr [here](https://myclericalromance.tumblr.com)


End file.
